A look back at Microsoft's busy year

The year 2011 has been eventful for Microsoft, from its partnership with Nokia to the purchase of Skype and the first peek at Windows 8. Here's Microsoft's year, from A to Z.

A= Azure. On Feb. 1, Microsoft marked the one-year anniversary of its Windows Azure cloud platform, on which developers and companies build software and distribute their products and services. New clients included Toyota and T-Mobile USA. Boeing released a virtual model of the Boeing 737 running on Azure.

C= Cloud. Microsoft honchos repeatedly say the company is "all in" to the cloud. So what did that entail in 2011? To boot to marking Azure's anniversary, this year Microsoft launched Windows Intune, Office 365, Dynamics CRM Online 2011, and Dynamics AX 2012 — all cloud products. It as well introduced iPhone and Windows phone mobile apps for SkyDrive, its personal cloud service. However Microsoft doesn't break out financial numbers for many of the cloud offerings, so it's hard to tell how they're doing financially.

G= Google. The competition amped up this year on various fronts, including search, mobile, patents, office productivity and the cloud. Maybe most entertainingly, a widening patent spat over Google's Android mobile operating system led to an exchange between the two in which Google characterized Microsoft's patent-licensing program as extortion and a Microsoft spokesman tweeted he had one word for Google: "Waaaah."

H= Hadoop. In October, Microsoft brought a version of this open-source, large-scale data-processing system to Windows Server and Azure, integrating it with SQL Server.

I= Internet Explorer. Microsoft likes to say Internet Explorer 9 is the most used browser worldwide on Windows 7. And if you add at the same time all versions of IE, it's after all the world's most used browser. Nevertheless IE's share has been steadily declining: to 41 percent, down from 48 percent a year ago, according to StatCounter, one Web analytics tracking firm. What's been rising? Google Chrome.

J= Julie Larson-Green. Microsoft's corporate vice president of program management for Windows was named one of Glamour magazine's list of women in tech who could become the at once great tech legend. She gave a key demo of Windows 8 at the Build conference.

K= Kinect. Microsoft marked Kinect's one-year anniversary in the fall by touting what it dubbed the "Kinect Effect" — people using the voice- and motion-sensor for more than Xbox games. In 2011, Microsoft gave academics a software-development kit for Kinect applications, and plans to do so for businesses straightway year.

L= Lync. Microsoft's office-communications software marked its first anniversary in December, claiming near 3 million enterprise users rely on it or rather than traditional PBX (Private -Automatic- Branch Exchange) for telephone-related needs.

M= Mango. Windows Phone 7.5, code-named "Mango," is the latest update of the Windows Phone operating system. During it was critically then-received afterwards it started rolling out in September, Windows Phone however wasn't able to gain much traction by the end of the year. Will 2012 be different?

N= Nokia. In February, the Finnish phone maker and Microsoft announced they were teaming up, with Nokia using primarily Windows Phone as its smartphone platform. Nokia launched its first Windows Phones — the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 — in October. Then year is huge for the partnership — and their future in the smartphone market.

O= Office. More than 100 million copies of Office 2010 have been sold since its launch in May 2010. It helped Microsoft's Business division reach $5.62 billion in sales in the most recent quarter.

P= Patents. Patents have become a financial and competitive strategy among tech companies, with Microsoft right in the thick of things. On the whole, the company contends that features in Google's Android infringe on Microsoft patents. It has sought patent-licensing agreements with phone makers who use Android, or taken them to court. By the end of 2011, it had reached licensing agreements with 10 manufacturers that at the same time represent more than 50 percent of Android devices. It was in litigation with Barnes & Noble and Inventec. In its litigation with a third company — Motorola — the International Trade Commission found in December that Motorola infringed on one of Microsoft's patents, nevertheless not on six others.

Q= Quarterly revenues. Even if Microsoft's stock price is flat, its quarterly revenues have performed solidly, thanks in large part to Windows, Office, and the Server and Tools business. For fiscal 2011, the company reached $69.9 billion in sales, with $23.2 billion in profit.

R= Re-imagining. That's what Microsoft says it's doing with Windows 8. And it actually wants to tell you about it. "Windows 8 is a re-imagining of Windows, from the chip to the interface," Julie Larson-Green wrote in June afterwards the first demonstration of the new operating system at the D9 conference. "Windows 8 is a bold re-imagining of what Windows could be," Windows President Steven Sinofsky said at Build. "If Windows 8 is Windows re-imagined ... we're as well in the process of re-imagining Microsoft," Ballmer declared, as well at Build. Imagine that.

S= Skype. Microsoft bought the Internet phone company for $8.5 billion, its largest purchase ever. Skype is now a business division within Microsoft, which presumably will integrate with its own offerings, including Lync, Outlook and Xbox. Will Skype's 170 million monthly users continue to be able to use its Internet voice and video-calling features for free? And will Microsoft do right by Skype? We'll see in 2012.

T= Tulalip. The internal code name for what turned out to be So.cl, Microsoft's experimental social network and search site for students, unveiled in December. The Tulalip Tribes were unhappy about it, saying the name infringed on the tribes' name. Microsoft apologized and dropped the code name.

W= Windows 8. The re-imagined operating system is expected to launch in a beta test in February. Windows 8 is the first Windows version designed from the beginning to work on both tablets and PCs. A lot is riding on it, including proof that Microsoft can however dominate computing in a world where competitors have zoomed ahead on mobile devices.

Z= Zune. RIP, Zune Player. There were a few days in October when we didn't know your fate: First, Microsoft seemed to say you were dead, at the time not dead, then and there, taking everything into account, at any rate dead. Your spirit lives on in the Zune music and video service in PCs, Xbox, Windows Phone and existing Zune players.